Existentialism and evolution essay

Existentialism is defined as a modern philosophical movement worrying the importance on the experience and accountability. It is focus is the make on the personal reflections that these help to make on the specific, who is seen as an free agent in a deterministic and relatively meaningless universe. Its idea is meticulous that, to put it briefly, advocates a diverse arsenal of responses and solutions to the ‘existentialist attitude’; which, essentially, is what someone feels when ever confronted by the absurdity of life. Throughout humanity, rumination and self-proclaimed ‘ultimate’ truths have presumed various forms: poetry, faith, and numerous various other doctrines and textual works.

In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka narrates the implications of a metamorphosis in which the subject and leading part, a man named Gregor Samsa, is become a pest. Despite the novella’s literary methods and impacts, the most prominent being just how Kafka therefore nonchalantly explains such anomaly in his existence, The Transformation is also hailed as a prime fiel work of existentialism, the previously mentioned philosophical movement.

Both prior and after the transformation, Kafka portrays Gregor being a man whom seems shed within himself, and lacking identity. The reminiscences of his past are none nostalgic neither poignant: his human a lot more seen to revolve solely around insignificant matters. His social lifestyle pays the price from this, his failure to assert a concrete floor and constant existence. The extent of his lack of individuality is definitely further exemplified by his reaction to the metamorphosis: locating himself “transformed in his bed into a huge insect (Kafka, 296), this individual prioritizes work over all else, even in his newly equated insect kind.

Furthermore, this individual panics mainly because “the subsequent train went at eight o’clock; to catch that he would ought to hurry just like mad wonderful samples were not even packed up (297). Gregor’s id crisis is known as a device pertaining to conveying Kafka’s belief of an impersonal contemporary society where individualism is substantially mitigated as a result of excessive materialism. Gregor, in the context of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes via Underground analogy, would be the ‘ant’ in the anthill” thus making his evolution ironically. One other dominant theme prevalent through the entire novella may be the absurd condition Gregor is confronted by. These kinds of non-sensical happenings (296-327) reflect the world because seen from the existentialist point of view: a world absent of a logical and extensive objective. Jean-Paul Sartre postulated that ‘every existing factor is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weak spot, and passes away by chance’.

This meaninglessness is just what Gregor is definitely victim to in the microcosm of culture that Kafka generates: Gregor flounders about, beleaguered simply by absurdity and helplessness, most probably because he is unaware of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard’s somewhat consoling conclusions that a person must create meaning for your own lifestyle ex nihilo. Once again, Kafka utilizes a mixture of plot and character to share his angst concerning a great apparently pointless existence. Freedom” or rather the lack thereof” is yet another existentialist tenet that Kafka addresses. Gregor is depicted as somebody constrained by simply self-imposed burdens, the most strenuous being the role since the financial pillar from the family. Despite having the independence to repudiate this role, Gregor instead pursues that with feverish ardor towards the extent it becomes his ‘sole desire’ (310).

However his harangue regarding his career (297-298) reveals that is certainly not due to personal desire, but rather the belief that he must replace his father fiscally, regardless of inclination. Gregor’s misconception regarding a reduction in choice contradicts what Kafka perceives as the truth: that freedom is definitely ubiquitous despite any ethical obligations we may be expected to stick to, and that the person defines his or himself via a person’s decisions. A quasi-motto of existentialism termed by Sartre, ‘existence precedes essence’. In conclusion, Kafka employs the fictional fictional elements this individual constructs to address the very nonfictional, existentialist facets of society and life. Comparable to Dostoyevsky’s Paperwork from Subway, it can be viewed as both equally a rumination and exhortation against gregario communities, limitation of flexibility, and the absurdity of life.

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